


Near Sweet Heaven

by Hth



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Dark Romantic, Death, Grief/Mourning, Justice for Sebastian, M/M, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel Fix-It, Underworld, more or less, not exactly s5 compliant, what even is time, y'all i'm not kidding there's a lot of death stuff in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hth/pseuds/Hth
Summary: Eliot mails a letter, makes a friend, and raises the dead. Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Rupert Chatwin | Dark King Sebastian/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 26
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,

Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?

And would the sun for thee more coldly shine,

Because of grave-damps falling round my head?

I marveled, my Beloved, when I read

Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine –

But – _so_ much to thee?

  


– Sonnet 23, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  


  


Eliot keeps it together – he thinks. More or less. According to Margo, he's coping _too_ well, and – god, he does _not_ say this lightly, but fuck Margo, kind of? What does she _want_ , is there some particular reason she needs to see him cry or whatever?

He cries. He cries damn near every night, and every morning the show must go on, just like Papa Freddie taught him. _Another heartbreak, another failed romance_ indeed.

Alice Quinn retreats to her mother's house and stays in bed for months, _feeling sad_.

Nice work if you can get it, Eliot supposes.

Eliot goes right back to work. Margo needs him. Fen needs him. Fillory needs him.

He drinks so much. He cries every night. He gets back on his feet and fights, because he was the High King of Fillory in his blood before they ever saddled him with the stupid crown, and he still is. He still is, even if no one knows it. If no one believes.

Quentin would believe. If Quentin were still alive.

 _Someone has to keep it together_ , he tells Jane Chatwin. _Is that what you think you're doing?_ she asks him. And as a matter of fact, it is, thank you very much.

He saves Fen. He saves Josh. He doesn't cry quite so many nights.

It's – a lot. Eliot is a weak man, he's always been a weak man, helpless in the face of temptation, timid in the face of opposition. Sue him, he just wants people to get along, okay? Eliot is a lover, not a fighter. He wants things to be – pretty and peaceful and festive. Yes, he wants boys to fight over who gets to dance with him next, but not, like, _fight_. He's so tired of fighting.

Margo thinks he's shutting her out. Maybe he is.

When he was very young, he thought that if things ever got really hard out in the real world, maybe he could come back home to his mother, and she'd let him in the house and he'd sleep in his same old bed, probably still under his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comforter, until he wasn't tired anymore, until he was ready to get back on his feet. He was, of course, _very_ young at that point in his life.

He drinks a lot. He lets his beard grow a little; he thinks it makes him look like he's _lived life_ , like it's made him a little wiser. He starts reading the goddamn Plover books; it's hard to bond with Martin Chatwin as a character, knowing what he knows, and then he feels guilty, like somehow he personally is witnessing an unfolding tragedy that he's powerless to stop, even though any moment that could have made a difference came and went before Eliot was even born. He writes a letter. He doesn't send it.

He saves his friends, because it's the right thing to do. He tries to think of ways to save Fillory.

He does it because that's what Quentin would do. If Quentin were still alive.

He drinks. He tries to be a good King-in-exile. He tries to be a good friend. He tries, okay? He does. Quentin was a good King-in-exile, and he was a good friend. Eliot is nothing like Quentin, but he'd like to be. Someone should be.

Weirdly, he sometimes thinks about Freddie Mercury, who died for just, like, the shittiest possible reason, for _no_ reason. Most great people die for no reason, they die for nothing.

Quentin died a hero. It helps sometimes, when Eliot reminds himself of that.

Not often, but sometimes.

Eliot writes a letter, but he doesn't send it.

Some nights he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, and he sleeps the whole night through and doesn't cry at all.

Eliot is keeping it together.

  


On the Mountain of Ghosts, a handsome man touches Eliot's face, and it feels--

Eliot had forgotten how it feels to--

He's not sure he ever really knew. How it feels to be offered comfort when he's sad, kindness with no strings attached. Just one grieving lunatic to another, the offer of a drink, a confession, a touch. They're dying here on this mountain, either from the booze or the march of time or the slow leak from the knives lodged in their hearts, draining out their will and their joy. Takes one to know one, right?

They're both dying, everything dies, but Sebastian touches him so tenderly, like he doesn't even want to leave a smudged fingerprint to mar Eliot's value. He doesn't love Eliot, not really – how could he? – and Eliot doesn't care, he doesn't give a damn, he just wants someone to touch him like he's breakable, like it would be okay for him to just take to his bed and have a broken heart and never, ever get over it.

“Death is so simple,” Sebastian tells him. “And life is so complicated.”

Eliot wonders if that's what Quentin was thinking when he died.

He wonders if Quentin ever forgave him for Blackspire – for shooting the monster and forcing Quentin to rejoin the world of the living, for the shit-storm of consequences that came of that moment, for the weight of those last months of his life in the jaws of a monster he couldn't even kill.

Probably, right? He forgave Alice, after all. He was a forgiving sort of person.

“I'm the reason he's gone,” Eliot says. He doesn't know what to offer in return for the gift of a touch; unlike Eliot, Sebastian once had a _love of his life_ ; unlike Eliot, Sebastian presumably has standards or something. But he believes in – truth, right? That the truth of someone is an honor to be bestowed, and Eliot has been holding this truth in his chest for so long. “I'm the reason he never knew how I felt. I was scared. He was brave, and I – I failed him.” Eliot's voice breaks helplessly on _fail_. He's so weak. He would abandon his friends and go home and crawl under the turtle comforter and give up on magic and Margo and Fillory and everything else, if he were allowed to go home. Everything and everyone that Eliot hasn't failed, it's just been for lack of opportunity.

Sebastian sighs, releasing a plume of dragon's breath into the chill of the night. “I wish I could tell you how to let him go,” Sebastian says. “But if I knew that, I wouldn't be on this damn mountain one more time, would I?”

“Will you stop coming here?” Eliot asks. “When you – can say goodbye to him, a real goodbye?”

“Maybe,” Sebastian says. “I once thought so. But...one does grow accustomed to a pain like this. All I have left of him is the wanting, and.... I suppose I'm afraid that if I ever do find peace, I'll have nothing at all.”

“He must've been quite a guy,” Eliot says. He's not sure if he's flirting? It's half-hearted at best, but. But all Eliot's life, it's felt like a binary choice: _flirt with boys_ or _give in and die_. When he was young, he kind of waffled back and forth, unwilling to surrender either option. Both had their charms. But then he made the choice, and then the choice made him. It feels way too late to change his mind now.

Sebastian smiles. God, he really is cute. “He was the one clean thing in my life. He was – magic the way I never knew it could be.” From his expression, it looks like it feels good to say. Eliot remembers hardly more than an hour ago, when he said _a good friend_ , and it tasted like dirt in his mouth but he told himself that he just wanted things to be peaceful, and he just wanted to be brave and make the sacrifice like Q would have, and he has to prove that he's learned something from Q, doesn't he? Doesn't Eliot have to – learn and grow and make it all worthwhile?

What Eliot _wants_ is to smile that same distant, dreamy smile that Seb smiles when he remembers his man. What Eliot wants is to say _he loved me and fought for me and believed in me, he knew all my flaws but he still thought the universe had somehow proved that I'd make him happy in the end_. God, it would feel so good. He's allowed to carry the loss of Quentin, barely, but nobody wants to hear about – the beautiful parts.

And god, it was beautiful, sometimes. God, Quentin was _magic_.

“I should go to bed,” Eliot says – for Seb's sake, really. Eliot's already demanded too much, wormed his way into this solitary thing that Seb does to keep the flame of memory lit and tried to make it all about himself. A kiss or two might make Eliot feel less alone, but alone is what Sebastian came here to be, and he deserves to have that, without complications. “I'm glad we talked. It – helped me. Honestly, it did.”

“I'm glad,” Sebastian says. “Sweet dreams, Eliot.”

Eliot doesn't exactly have those, but tonight he doesn't cry, either.

  


At the top of the mountain, there's a shaft into the center of the world. The Underworld.

Eliot unzips his little purse and hands Alice the vial that contains a little piece of Q – the last little piece of him, unless you count the wanting.

She is kind enough to invite him to stay. Eliot doubts he'd be so generous, if he were the one who'd manage to grasp this last grain of love in his hands, but then, Eliot so rarely does get to claim the moral high ground.

He's trying to change. He's trying to be more generous, more gentle with the rest of the world, knowing as he does now how broken everyone is. It's a bit of a work in progress. He's not sure how he's going to explain it to Margo, if Margo ever notices the change.

“Is there anything you want to say to him?” Alice asks. Eliot is incredibly conscious of the bag resting against his thigh, of the letter – all the things he wants so badly to say, that he wants _so badly_ to be selfish enough to say.

He's trying to change. If everyone is going to know why Quentin died, he at least wants them to think that – Quentin wasn't a fool, that he wasn't wrong.

He shakes his head. No, there's nothing. “Rest,” Alice murmurs, and lets him go.

For such a long, eventful journey up here, it seems – anticlimactic. They both stand over the shaft for a long time. “Well,” Alice finally says. “I guess – we're done, right?”

“Almost,” Eliot says, fumbling with the zipper. “I have this-- I wrote him a, I wrote this letter, and I didn't. Know what to do with it. I should – I should--”

He should throw it into the Underworld. He should let this last stupid, _selfish_ fucking hope die along with Q, let it rest and maybe it will let Eliot rest. Wiser people than Eliot have explained to him in granular detail why trying to change the past could make him – basically a murderer, _again_ , could cost countless lives – and Quentin would never want that, he was better than that, he was _good_. He was good, and he did the right thing, and now he's not here to do it anymore so Eliot has to. He has to, he has to be good, better, he has to deserve--

He never will, he never could deserve what Q gave him, but he has to try.

“Why is there a stamp on it?” Alice asks, damn her. “Is that enchanted?” She reaches for it, a spark of that niffinish curiosity in her eyes that overwhelms her sense of good manners or personal boundaries.

“ _Don't_ ,” he says, too harsh, too loud.

Alice shrinks back, blinking owlish, startled eyes at him. “Sorry,” she says. She sounds like she means it. “I'm sorry, I-- that's yours.”

She's not a bad person. She's – not someone Eliot will ever really understand, but he doesn't want to fight with her. God, he doesn't want to fight with anybody, why can't they all just...? “It's, it is enchanted,” he says haltingly. He's not sure that he trusts Alice, precisely, but he knows that Quentin trusted her, and he's trying to be more like Quentin. “I thought at first that I could send it – to him in the past, that I could maybe – save him or whatever.”

“But.” Alice's eyes dart down and up, lines and twitches appearing between them to mark the weather as she processes everything. “But that could--”

“I know, okay?” he says, too tired to sound sharp. “I know I can't do that, it's. It's too complicated. He...wouldn't want me to. So I'm just going to...” Eliot gestures vaguely at the shaft, miming the world's most ineffectual three-point shot. “Here, if you can just _give_ me a minute. This isn't easy, you know.”

“I know,” Alice says simply, and he feels like a dick. Of course she knows. Obviously. “Eliot, it's – it's okay that it's hard. He was your friend.”

It's like his mouth is full of dirt again, and this time it wasn't even _his_ mouth saying the words. God, he just-- every time it gets worse, like someone's burying him alive, throwing shovel after shovel down onto him, and he can't breathe and he can't make any noise, he can choke on his wordless tears night after night, alone, but he can't speak. He's keeping it together, he's keeping the peace, he's trying to be good but it's killing him. His lungs are full of his own failure, he's suffocating on all the shameful secrets he inherited from Q, that he clutches to himself now, that he has to take with him to his grave.

He can never tell anyone, because _Quentin_ never told anyone. Quentin didn't want them to know. How can Eliot betray him? What kind of a person would even _want_ to?

Eliot is so weak. He's always been weak, but he's _dying_ , and – how can it be right to let that happen, when Quentin fought so hard and believed so fiercely that Eliot's life was worth saving?

In the end, when he grabs for the shovel and fights back, it's not because he's honoring the truth of Quentin. He doesn't really do it for Quentin at all. It's just because he shut the door on _give up and die_ a long time ago, and he's never going back. He can't anymore. Sometimes you're just not welcome back in the life you used to live, and all you can do is go forward. “He wasn't just my friend,” Eliot says, and he says it for himself, to save his own life.

There's a moment where he could walk it back. He looks at Alice, pale and shocked and struggling for words, and he's overwhelmed for a moment with – pity, with the urge to be gentle with – this person whose loss is as much like Eliot's as anyone's ever could be. The words _I'm sorry_ sit solidly on his tongue. _I didn't mean it, I take it back, I don't want to fight with you, keep what you need of him, you deserve it, he believed that you deserved it._

How can he punish Alice Quinn, who was more precious to Quentin than anything in the world? Why would he ever want to?

 _Why spare her?_ Eliot hears in his mind, quick and sharp, rushing to Eliot's defense.

No one has done jack shit to spare Eliot, not since the moment of his return. Margo has taken everything he's done as a personal insult. Alice tried to keep him from this trip, from even knowing that a piece of Q's _fucking soul_ still existed in the world. Nobody in the whole world has sent Eliot so much as a fucking condolence card, let alone tiptoed around him like his grief _mattered_ , like it wasn't just one more thing to add to his future therapist's billable hours. _Alice got to run home to mommy_ , but Eliot didn't, Eliot doesn't, Eliot never will, and Eliot has been struggling day after day after day to be better than he was, but if he has to hear Alice say _my boyfriend_ one more goddamn time, he's going to go fucking supervillain, he swears he is.

Nobody but a complete stranger could even look at Eliot and see how fragile he is, how close to the edge. Sebastian didn't know how to help, but he _knew that Eliot needed help_. Why did Eliot have to climb a mountain of ghosts to find one single human being who knew that?

He's _not sorry_. Fuck everyone and everything. He's no one's lover now, so he might as well fight.

“You really think I didn't know there was more?” Alice says, quivering on the verge of tears. “I knew Q really well. He was – complicated. I knew that all along.”

This time, Eliot doesn't feel any sympathy at all. He's done with that, at least for now. Maybe forever, who knows. “You didn't,” he says. He's not here to be cruel, but he's tried keeping all these cursed secrets, carrying them like a bag of rocks up a mountain, and if he's going to survive this, he needs to put them down. “How could you have known him, Alice? Maybe at Brakebills you were friends, but then you left him.”

“ _I_ left him?” Alice repeats, her shock beginning to grow angry teeth. “You know why--”

“Yeah, I know why, of course I know why, but Jesus, Alice, it was still _your decision_. You couldn't forgive him, that's fine, you didn't have to forgive him, but if it had been the other way around he would've forgiven you and you know it. He would've done anything to be with you, and you didn't feel the same way, so you ended it. You had every right, but god, just be honest about it! You ended it, you left him, and you weren't friends after that, you didn't talk or hang out, he didn't go to you when he needed to lean on someone, when he needed someone to pick him up. That was _me_ , he came to me. _I_ knew him. _I_ loved him. You have no fucking idea how close we were, or for how long – longer than you can imagine. And I knew the whole time how he felt about you, but you? No. No, you don't get to tell me _you knew_ , because you had no idea. If you wanted to be someone who was in Quentin's life like that, who was allowed to know those things, you should've accepted one of his nine thousand apologies, gotten over your prissy little objections to stupid drunk hookups, and _been with him_. You had every chance. No one's to blame for you not taking them except you.”

He knows he's not just yelling at Alice. He knows.

They both fucked up, and not just a little bit. They both let Q down.

Only one of them got the chance for a hard reboot, and what is he supposed to do, what the _fuck_ is he supposed to do, shake her hand? Say, _good game, Quinn_? Treat her like the best man won, when she didn't win, she didn't _win_ , it's just that he never got the chance to show up to the fucking fight?

He needed – two minutes. He just needed two minutes, he _saw_ Quentin's face when Eliot said _proof of concept_ to him, he knows it was there, it was all still there, in the palm of Eliot's hand, he just needed more time.

Two minutes. And maybe it wouldn't have saved him, maybe Quentin would still have thrown himself into the Seam to save the world or whatever, maybe everyone's right and there was never another road for Quentin to go down, not when he was the man that he was. But two more minutes to plead his case, and Eliot _knows in his heart_ that he'd be the one getting to play the Widow Coldwater right now, graciously admitting that it was a little bit _complicated_ , what Quentin and Alice had once had.

All right, he doesn't _know_ that.

But he feels it. It feels so real to him, so close. The palm of his hand, two minutes away. He still sees Quentin's face in his dreams, blood-splattered and eyes alight, the ache, the _love_ in his voice when he said Eliot's name.

Two minutes – one minute – thirty seconds. Just long enough to say _I'll make it all up to you when I get back, sweetheart, believe me, I will_. That's what it would have taken to change everything about this moment, but that was – too much. Eliot didn't have that kind of strength.

Eliot's weakness is not now and never has been Alice Quinn's fault. He's aware, but it's still just – such a fucking relief to hate someone other than himself for a few minutes, you know? He'll say he's sorry later, probably, he just. He needs _something_ , and all he has is this.

“You know, you can yell at me all you want,” Alice yells back. She's crying. That's not – that's not what Quentin would want, he wouldn't want – it's not what Eliot wants, why is there always _fighting_? “But it doesn't help, you know? It doesn't bring him back, and it doesn't make it so he only loved you. Don't you think if I could've – if I could've screamed and stomped my feet and made _you_ go away, I would have? But I can't, it doesn't-- He was in love with you, but he was in love with me, too, and that's not something we ever get to – fix or sort out or clean up or whatever, it's just – the mess he left us with.”

Eliot is so tired. He's so tired all the time because he can't sleep right, he dreams of what Quentin's eyes looked like when he hoped that Eliot was strong enough. He dreams of what they must have looked like when Quentin realized he wasn't. “It's not a mess,” Eliot says. “He wasn't _complicated_ , and he didn't _break things_ , and he didn't _make messes_. He loved people – too many people, the wrong people, I don't know! I don't know. Nobody deserved him. Neither of us fucking deserved him, but he didn't care about that, did he?”

The letter is clutched in his fist. He's wrinkling it.

He came here to destroy it. Quentin would want him to, and Quentin was – Quentin was a hero, he--

Everything looks like a ghost on this mountain. It's probably because Eliot is crying so hard, for all the good that does. Alice shimmers in front of his eyes, a trick of the light.

“Neither of us deserved him,” Eliot says as he jams the crumpled letter back in his pouch and yanks the zipper shut. “He was the one clean thing in the world, and the world doesn't deserve _shit_ from him. Especially not his life.”

“Eliot, you're not going to--” she starts.

Eliot wipes his eyes on his stupid butch olive drab sleeve. “Don't worry,” he says. “I won't do anything he wouldn't do.”

That's a big, fat fucking lie. But if he pulls this off, the Alice he's lying to will never have to exist, so it'll be like it never happened at all. And if he doesn't pull it off--

Well, he will. He has to.

Someone has to keep it together.

  


Eliot started up the Mountain of Ghosts with Alice. He walks down with Sebastian, because Eliot and Alice just – both need space. The two parties stay close enough together to catch glimpses now and then, for safety's sake, and when darkness falls, Eliot helps Alice pitch her tent and makes sure her rock circle is secure. He and Seb find a spot within screaming distance and build their own fire.

“I'm sorry,” Seb tells him, as Eliot leans against his shoulder and snuffles, all the tears already wrung out of him. “I know this wasn't how you hoped this would end.”

He's so – god, he's so _kind_. Eliot's nothing to him, he doesn't have to give a shit what Eliot wants, but here he is, warm and attentive and smelling like woodsmoke and some kind of mint, maybe? He smells nice. He seems like he really. Cares.

“I'm going to try to save him,” Eliot confesses. He shouldn't, but – well. He can say whatever he wants here, right? They're strangers sharing a flask and cuddling in the zombie-infested darkness, so like, yeah? He can say whatever he wants, he thinks. “I have this – this enchanted letter, I can warn him. I can warn him not to go to the Seam.”

Seb makes a soft, noncommittal noise. “There must be a reason you've waited so long to use it.”

“They said.... Everybody said that – messing with time. That I could screw things up worse. Everybody was trying so hard, you know? What if it gets – worse?”

Eliot doesn't want to fuck up the world. He's a vaguely shitty person, but he's not _that_ shitty. He just. Can't keep not trying. Not trying feels like being dead himself, and he's not ready to choose that.

“How can I help?” Seb asks. Eliot just snorts, full of despair and mucus. “Oh, give me a chance,” Seb says, light and warm and, ugh, that sexy accent. “I'm not without my resources.”

“It happened a long time ago,” Eliot says. “I mean, time is all fucked up, it was – a long time ago on Earth.”

“What year did he die?” Seb asks. “I promise I can take the shock, just tell me.”

“2019,” Eliot admits. God, has it been – less than a year? Is that possible?

Seb hums again, thoughtfully. “It's tricky,” he says. “It's not impossible.”

Something shudders inside Eliot. It's – hope? It's a sign of life, anyway. “It's not?” he says in a tiny voice, like a small child asking his mommy and daddy if they're _sure_ the closet is free of child-eating demons, like, _very_ sure?

“Time's no trouble,” Seb says easily, confidently. Something about his sheer confidence makes Eliot curl in closer, makes him feel small enough to hide under Seb's arm. It's nice. “The trouble is that by 2019, I'm bound to Fillory for good. I can't help you on Earth.”

Eliot makes himself focus; his hindbrain may want to take permanent refuge in Sebastian's calm certainty, but he has to fucking think. “Parts of it happened on Fillory,” he says. He wasn't around for any of it, of course, but he's heard the story, too many times. “The Reservoir....”

“Martin's Reservoir?” Sebastian says. Eliot's heart shudders again, gasping for air, grasping at straws. “He drained the Secret Sea. He hid it under Castle Whitespire so only he could access its power.”

“Yes,” Eliot says. “Yeah, and he cursed it, there was – like a riddle, or more like a test, you had to – love Fillory or something. Quentin.... He did the thing. He loved-- He always loved Fillory, you know? So much. Quentin did it, he broke the curse, but then Everett drained the Reservoir before--”

“Drained the Reservoir?” Sebastian repeats, and this time his voice is colder, deeper. It's almost scary, like the dark shadow of a prehistoric fish moving under ice. “Is that what happened to it.” It's kind of not a question, the way he says it. If anything, it's a threat.

“I – think so, yeah,” Eliot says, suddenly wary. “I wasn't there, but that's what I heard.”

Seb is silent for a moment, and then he speaks again in that soothing way from before. “Well, now we're making progress. This Everett, he's the one who killed your love?” Eliot nods, his scruff rasping against Sebastian's sturdy jacket. “Well, then,” Seb says, sounding satisfied. “Well, he made a mistake then, didn't he?”

“He's the head of the Library,” Eliot says hesitantly. Like, _don't stop_ , that's so hot, but also full disclosure? “I think he's – really strong. Magician-wise, you know.”

“Do you have the enchanted letter with you?” Seb asks.

Eliot does. He pulls it out, bent and a little smudged. He's been carrying it for a while now. He brought it here to throw it – to get rid of – he really did mean to do – the right thing....

Sebastian plucks it from his hand and pries up the flap of the envelope efficiently. Eliot wants to tell him _wait, stop, that's mine – that's Q's –_ but he can't make the words come, and anyway Sebastian isn't stopping to read it. He flips the page over to the unmarked back, and he moves his hand in a trivially simple tut, Popper 9, Eliot thinks; they used to use it at Brakebills to take notes, or at least the kind of people who took notes in class did. Eliot leans closer, breathing in Sebastian's scent as he watches the writing appear, slanted at a careless angle across the page.

 _Clock Barrens_ , it says. _Tell the witch that Everett can be defeated at the Secret Sea. Tell her RC is willing to take up your cause. Take heart. You have friends in Fillory._

Have they ever had friends in Fillory before, any of them? It sounds too good to be true.

Still without reading the side of the page Eliot's filled up, Sebastian folds the letter back exactly the way it was and tucks it in the envelope. He holds it out to Eliot and Eliot takes it. The paper feels charged, hot with the afterglow of Popper 9, or just with – whoever, whatever Sebastian is.

He can't be for real, can he? He can't have this kind of power, the power to just – make all of this stop, make it go away. Eliot looks down at his own looped writing on the front of the envelope: _Quentin Coldwater, Before he went to the Seam_.

This can't be real. _Friends in Fillory?_ Eliot calls bullshit.

But if it is real. If it can – even just buy time somehow, just weaken Everett. Even two minutes, who knows? Who knows what kind of difference that kind of window could buy?

“Why are you doing this?” Eliot says. “I mean, it could be dangerous, it _will_ be dangerous. What do you – want?” Everyone wants something, don't they? Everything costs something.

“Life is dangerous,” Sebastian says in that same easy, airy way, like it's nothing. “You've been given a gift, Eliot. This charm, what is it if not a second chance? You must know how precious that is.” It wasn't exactly a _gift_ , but that's neither here nor there. Eliot nods seriously. “It's not entirely for the sake of you and your love, much as I find your story touching. I care deeply about Fillory; I always have, and I can tell you I don't look kindly on people who would raid it for their own purposes and give nothing back to this land.”

“You said – Martin. Chatwin, you knew Martin Chatwin?”

Sebastian sighs and wrinkles his (stupidly cute) nose, which is in Eliot's opinion the exact reaction a person really should have to knowing Martin Chatwin. “All too well,” he says. “I'm – disinclined to defend Martin, but no one loved Fillory more. We shared that, at least. Once.”

“How old _are_ you?” Eliot blurts out.

Fortunately for him, Sebastian seems amused by the question. “Positively ancient,” he says. “Don't you see the gray in my hair?”

“Silver fox,” Eliot murmurs. He shouldn't-- He shouldn't. But if they change the past, then it'll be like this never happened at all.

Eliot won't remember ever meeting Sebastian, if they meet again in 2019. Probably. Right?

Sometimes Eliot remembers things he shouldn't, so who knows. Time is a total mindfuck; it makes Eliot long for the simple purity of launching objects through the air at potentially fatal speeds.

Sebastian's hand squeezes Eliot's arm briefly. “Flatterer,” he says, and moves casually further away. So that's – a clear enough signal, Eliot feels.

It's fine. None of this is real, or at least it's all temporary, hopefully, so.

Eliot sleeps by the fire, clutching his jacket closed over the traveling pouch, holding it to his belly. He's convinced he can still feel the heat, the lingering power of its spellwork soaking into his belly, but it's probably just the campfire. Sebastian stays up all night, or at least it seems that way. Keeping watch for Takers, Eliot guesses.

He feels a little guilty about – Alice, huddled alone in her tent with only her phosphomancy for companionship. It's not how he meant for this trip to go, it's really not. He wanted to help.

 _Take heart_ , he thinks over and over again as he settles into a shallow, bleary sleep that eddies like fog around him. _Take heart. You have friends in Fillory._

Eliot's been keeping it together for so long.

 _Take heart_ , he thinks. It's a message for Quentin, but in the meantime Eliot keeps it for himself, holds it to himself and hopes that it burns its way right into his skin so he never has to let it go. _Take heart._

_Take heart._

  



	2. Chapter 2

Eliot takes a false start or seven at waking up, but everything is bright lights and dull pain, too many voices and the _bad_ drugs. Nothing sparkles _at all_.

He wants to go back. He doesn't care if it wasn't real, it was just delightful, and the Monster trashed his body, so why doesn't _he_ have to live in it now? Total bullshit, very unfair. There ought to be a law.

Eventually he has to be alive again. People seem happy about that, which is. Nice. Eliot is, it seems, beloved.

He's happiest when he can be alone, though. It's not that he's unappreciative, or that he doesn't love them all in return – even Josh, who apparently is on the team now? Even Josh. But alone is still Eliot's favorite. He pretends to sleep so they'll tiptoe and whisper and eventually leave him alone.

Almost all the time, he's only pretending to sleep. When he tries to sleep for real, he dreams too much to get any good rest out of it.

He dreams of an old man, white-haired, smiling up at him with Quentin's sweet, dark eyes. He dreams of standing in front of some kind of well, deep and dark, of staring down into it with a chill that crawls up his throat to freeze his voice, that paralyzes him when he tries to call for help. He dreams of walking with a limp, a cane in one hand and Margo supporting his other arm, moving through the darkness toward some kind of campfire, and for some reason everyone wants him to come closer to the fire, and all he wants to do is run, but he can't.

He dreams that it's a beautiful sunny day, and the left side of his body is growing numb and heavy, and he can't move his jaw. He knows he's dying, and all he can think is, _but I was fine this morning_ – and then, _who will take care of him, he'll be all alone_ – and then, _but we're not finished, but I'm not ready_. He wants to open his mouth, he wants to say something, and he can't.

That's the one that wakes him shouting, and he shudders over and over like a dog trying to shake something out of its fur, even though it makes his barely scabbed over axe wound hurt worse than it has since he was lying in the dirt in Fillory, oozing blood. Now, just like then, Margo is clinging to him and barking his name in badly disguised terror.

“I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die,” he says. He must be saying it. It's his voice, it's his mouth. He doesn't feel like it's him talking, though. (It's not. It's the man with the frozen jaw, the man by the edge of the deep well, the boy who slept with his father's gun under his pillow, the man feeling an alien cruelty flow into his body, his synapses slowing, his surroundings going blurred and dark as the human world flowed away like the tide.)

(He likes it when it's quiet. Why create trouble, why upset people? It's nicer when everyone gets along. It feels good to be beloved. _A gracious host has the comfort and enjoyment of his guests as his highest priority at all times_ – that was in a midcentury book of etiquette that belonged to his grandmother, that his mother kept after she died. Eliot loved that book, the imaginary world it created of refined manners and elegant parties and civilized conversation, all available on a bourgeois budget.)

“Christ, El, please, please, shut up,” Margo says. She sounds really tired. She doesn't seem to know what to do with her hands, petting his shoulder and his face lightly like she's scared to settle anywhere. “You're not going to die, okay? You're not.”

(He's causing such a scene. He never does that. This isn't Eliot at all.)

Eliot cries then, for kind of a long time. Margo crawls into the hospital bed alongside him, her head and hand on his chest, her leg thrown over his thighs. She might be crying too, in a much classier, more restrained way than Eliot himself is managing. Eliot closes his hand around her little forearm. She's so small. She always is, but she doesn't always seem it; Eliot must be scaring the shit out of her, making her – aura or whatever curl in on itself.

“It's okay,” he says when he can exert some control over himself again. He rubs his hand over her arm, the sharp little bones of her wrist, and summons up a smile. Margo isn't looking at him, but he finds it helps to get in character. “I'm okay. See? I'm good.” He's good, he's alive. He can be _a gracious host_ even in his bedridden, vulnerably yet handsomely disheveled state. If you only have good manners when it's easy, of course, you really don't have good manners at all. (He can't remember if the book said that, or if it was only implied.)

“I honestly thought I killed you,” she says against his chest. “Fuck, El. _I could've killed you_.”

“You saved me,” he says.

He's still not quite clear on how, but it feels so true.

Over the next few days, bit by bit, Eliot collects pieces of the story. Fen and the Queen of West Loria conspiring to overthrow Margo. Margo conspiring to be overthrown to get her hands on the anti-possession axes. Monster and Other-Monster trapped like fireflies in a jar. A weak point in the Mirror World where you can slip someone or something right out of existence. Hedges helping hedges. The Library helping literally nobody. Sometimes Eliot drifts in and out a bit while people talk to him – it all gets a little samey, over the years.

He's able to walk back and forth around his hospital room when Fen comes to visit. She hugs him too hard, but he doesn't complain; you really can't complain about someone without an unkind bone in her body, you will never have the high ground. “I'm very cross with you,” he says, sitting down on the edge of his bed with her and petting her hair. “You're going to give Bambi her crown back, aren't you?”

“Oh – you don't know, do you?” Fen says, clearly torn between dread and glee at the prospect of being the linchpin for this new gossip. “Oh, I was overthrown days ago!”

“Sorry to hear it?” Eliot says. She doesn't seem very sorry. “Well, don't take it too personally. Happens to the best of us. Overthrown by whom?”

“You really don't know,” she says breathlessly. “Eliot, he's back. Rupert Chatwin came back to Fillory! I always thought it was a myth, him sleeping until the time of Fillory's greatest need, but--”

On the one hand, it does sound a little overly pat. On the other hand, Chatwins are undeniably a hardy breed. “Is this Fillory's greatest need?”

Fen hasn't seemed to consider this before. “Well,” she says. “We – woke him up. It seemed pretty important at the time. And he dueled with Library Hitler by the Secret Sea--”

“Dueled with-- beg your pardon?”

“I don't know what that means, it's not his name? But people call him that. Anyway, he came to steal Fillory's magic so he could – eat the Monsters, I guess, and become a monster, or god, or both? But Quentin and the Watcherwoman woke up Rupert Chatwin and told him it was time to defend Fillory, and he did! So. He's the High King now. Again. I mean, obviously!”

“Obviously,” Eliot says.

Eliot is familiar with the name, of course. Of the _Chatwin_ Chatwins, the oldest brother. A war hero on Earth, the universally beloved Last Good King of Fillory, until his sudden disappearance – every kind of Greatest Generation you can be, by all reports Rupert Chatwin is it. That's – more or less as far as Eliot's familiarity extends, though.

He does, however, have access to a living, breathing Wiki of Chatwin lore, should Eliot choose to make use of it. Convenient, on paper.

In practice.... Things with Q are strange right now.

They've had their touching reunion, of course. The details are morphine-woozy, but he remembers Quentin being among the familiar faces hovering over him. He remembers catching hold of Quentin's hand in both of his and saying _Q, I'm sorry_ , but he couldn't say anything more coherent. It didn't seem necessary, though. Quentin smiled and stroked Eliot's hair back and said, _shh, El, just get some rest_. He didn't seem mad.

Everything seemed good.

Eliot can't remember who told him about Quentin and Alice. It's just something that – he didn't know at first, and now he does know, and that's that. It's fine. It's – good, it's good that Quentin has moved on with his life, that he's had a partner to support him through all of this bullshit, that he finally got what he always wanted.

Trapped in his hospital bed and the immediate environs for almost two weeks, Eliot's been compelled to be honest with himself: he's disappointed. He imagined _such_ a good apology kiss, and it's a goddamn shame to think it'll only ever be imaginary.

Sometimes you just don't get a second chance. It is what it is. Eliot can handle disappointment graciously, of course he can.

It's just that – Q isn't really giving him a chance to prove that. He's never here in the room alone with Eliot, always in a group. He laughs when everyone else is laughing. He puts his arm around whoever else in the room looks exhausted. He does everything a friend would do, but he doesn't--

What? What's missing? Eliot can't quite put his finger on it.

Quentin just doesn't. Look at Eliot the way he used to.

(Eliot has never been so beloved by the world at large as he is during his convalescence. Why isn't that enough? Can't he just – have enough, can't he just be happy? He's so lucky to be alive, he's so lucky to have these friends – this friend – this man that he _loves_ for a best friend.)

But what can Eliot say? Quentin is happy. Quentin deserves to be happy.

Anyway. They don't talk much anymore, not really. So it's awkward to ask.

He used to love asking Quentin to tell him about Fillory. _Hit the highlights for me_ , he used to say, just to tease. _Tl;dr. What's my takeaway here?_ And Quentin would get more and more riled up until he huffed and grouched, _Well, if you'd shut up for ten seconds--_ and, _This is the highlights version, the book is the long version and I'm giving you the fucking highlights_. And then he'd still tell Eliot way too much and get way too wrapped up in it, and Eliot used to get a contact high off Quentin's sincerity, his care.

Eliot's brain doesn't naturally synthesize those particular chemicals. He needs an external source.

Okay, it's awkward, but the hell with it, someone has to make the first move, someone has to unfuck their friendship. So when Quentin and Alice and Julia are getting ready to leave after a visit, Eliot just does it, casually asks if Q can stay behind for a little bit and answer some questions for him. “Of course,” Quentin says, then hugs both the girls and tells them he'll make his way back to the city later.

Carefully, Eliot levers himself up to a sitting position in bed and reaches for his water bottle. He tries to ignore – how quiet the room seems, with just the two of them, saying nothing.

(It used to be his favorite part of being with Quentin. Having someone who would hold his hand or put his head on Eliot's chest, and just – not talk. Not make Eliot feel responsible for carrying the conversation. The quiet, the quiet. Margo could keep it going for – maybe fifteen minutes, half an hour. Quentin could go all day long.)

“I guess you want to know about the Monster,” Quentin finally says flatly. “It must – be weird not remembering anything.”

“No, I'm good with that part, actually,” Eliot says. “I was hoping you could tell me about Rupert Chatwin. I mean, that's – a twist, right?”

“You could say that, yeah,” Quentin agrees. “He's, uh. Nice? Kind of intense. He's put Zelda in charge of the Library; Alice and Kady are helping her.”

“And he's taken over in Fillory,” Eliot says.

Quentin makes a slight face that Eliot can't quite read – like he's displeased, but not enough to get involved. “They love him there,” Quentin says. “Like – the people, I mean. They had all these stories already, and he's – pretty charismatic or whatever, I guess. They're calling him Rupert the Eternal.”

Given that most of the High Kings Fillory's had since Rupert's disappearance lasted a matter of months, Eliot can understand the appeal of that. “I guess I just don't understand-- Fen said you and the Watcherwoman – woke him up? What happened?”

Quentin looks at him for a minute. It's the most he's looked at Eliot for – since Eliot came back. Finally he looks away with a little shrug. “To be honest, I was hoping you'd know something about it.”

“Me?” Eliot says. “How would I--”

“I don't know, it was stupid,” Quentin says shortly. He fishes something out of the pocket of his jacket – a folded envelope, not the Walgreens type, but nice Fillorian parchment. Eliot can glimpse what looks like Quentin's name on the front of it – what looks like Quentin's name in Eliot's own handwriting, and something about it makes the back of his neck prickle. Eliot has never seen that envelope before – right? “So a long time ago,” Quentin begins, and Eliot wishes he could fully relax into the sound of Quentin starting a Fillorian tale, but the circumstances are all wrong for relaxing, “the Beast put a curse on the Secret Sea – on Fillory's magic reservoir. Or. Martin Chatwin, I guess. He was still young, back then. We had Margo and the axes to get the Monsters out of, um, their hosts, but the Incorporate Bond that would hold them into their new containers – we needed way more power for that, and the Reservoir was our best option, but--”

“Cursed,” Eliot says.

Quentin glances from the envelope up to Eliot's face, and for once he smiles almost like Eliot remembers. “Cursed,” he agrees. “It turned Josh into a fish.”

“Simultaneously horrific and twee,” Eliot says. “So on-brand for Fillory. Good old Martin.”

Quentin snorts. “So we had to get this – stupid plant or something from the Drowned Garden, and it'll only, I guess, bloom for someone who loves Fillory. How awful is that, it's – like, fuck Fillory, you know?” Eliot smiles slightly; there's no rage that burns like that of a scorned fanboy. “But we went to the Drowned Garden, and – there was this.”

He shows the envelope to Eliot. It's definitely Eliot's writing. It says _Quentin Coldwater_ , and beneath it something is scratched out aggressively, and then below that yet again, it reads _At the Drowned Garden_. “I don't guess you remember writing a letter?” Quentin says. Eliot shakes his head. “Yeah. You probably wouldn't, I just thought.... Anyway, the stamp on this letter, it's temporal magic. It was sent from – a few months in the future. You sent it to me from the future, to warn me that Everett would try to steal the Monsters to take their power for himself. That he'd find us at the Seam. That. That I'd die there.”

The words hang strangely in the air, motionless. “Oh,” Eliot finally says. “Well. It always did take us a dress rehearsal or two before we got it right. Or forty.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says with a little smile. “But – you wanted to know about Rupert Chatwin.”

Right. He did want that, before he got a little sidetracked by _sent a letter from the future_ and _Quentin dying_. “Rupert Chatwin,” he repeats vaguely.

“So – okay. Here's the part none of us really understand.” Quentin opens the envelope and pulls out the page inside. It looks like one side is covered with writing, but Quentin carefully holds the paper in front of Eliot with that side facing away. The other side is mostly blank, except for clean, sharp black lettering that says-- Eliot squints at it a little and reaches to bring it closer, because it's hard to make out quite what it says, but unexpectedly, Quentin snatches it back out of his reach. “Don't-- Just read this part, okay?”

“It's hard to read from there,” Eliot says carefully. “Can I just – let me have it, I'll give it right back.”

Quentin looks nauseous at the very thought, which, like – what the fuck is happening right now? “Only if you, you give me your word you won't. Just this side, okay? The other part is – personal.”

“I thought I wrote it,” Eliot says. Quentin concedes that point with a tight, brittle half-shrug. “So it's personal to me, right?” Eliot prompts.

“Eliot. Just.”

God, he looks miserable. “Okay,” Eliot says, as gently as he can. “I'll give it right back, and I won't look at anything else. Let me see it.”

Still visibly reluctant, Quentin hands him the paper, and Eliot tears his gaze away from Quentin's drawn face long enough to read the message. _Clock Barrens_. _Tell the witch that Everett can be defeated at the Secret Sea. Tell her RC is willing to take up your cause. Take heart. You have friends in Fillory._ Most of it makes sense, given what Eliot's already been told – how the Watcherwoman got involved, the duel at the Secret Sea, RC. No stunning revelations. He holds the paper back out to Quentin without even glancing down at it again.

“So, um,” Quentin forces himself to say, folding the paper and setting it on his leg, holding the envelope flat against it, his hand spread over it protectively. What the _fuck_ is happening? “So the, uh, the other part was clearly from you, but that seemed to be – not you? Like it was added later, I guess by – I mean, we figured by Rupert, somehow. We don't know what woke him in that timeline, or why, why he'd offer to fight Everett for us.”

“General world-saving, one assumes,” Eliot says absently. If ever there was a hero with purely altruistic motives, it would be Good King Rupert, right? It tracks with his reputation, anyway.

“Yeah, except – see, the thing is, we did save the world. I did, I guess. I put the Monsters through the Seam, and I – I killed Everett in the Mirror Realm, it's just that I. Killed us both. So it, um, it makes sense? You know? That you would want to – maybe take another run at it, but why would Rupert Chatwin care? Why would he say I had-- I mean, this part, it's to me, right? It's on my letter, and it says _your_ cause. _You_ have friends in Fillory. But he never met me. It doesn't make sense.”

Eliot kind of rebels against the logic on a visceral level – who _wouldn't_ want to save Quentin Coldwater's life? Except he's actually – technically correct. It's a weird move, from a total stranger. “And I guess he doesn't know, either,” Eliot says. “Since he never actually lived the part of his life where he wrote this. If he did write it.”

“No, he doesn't know. But he is pretty sure he's the one who wrote it. I guess there's some kind of – clue in it, or inside joke or something? Something only he would recognize. That's why we didn't have to talk him into risking his life, he just said, um. He said, _Clearly I had my reasons_.” That last bit, Quentin says in a clunky British accent. It's too fucking cute, Eliot can't not smile. Quentin's eyes drop to Eliot's mouth, and there's a moment where he looks back up and--

Well. Fuck. That's--

Well – fuck.

(Sometimes you don't get a second chance. Eliot didn't expect a do-over on all his mistakes – any of his mistakes. Even in the Happy Place, even in his _wildest fucking dreams_ , all they did was kiss. All he wants is that kiss, he won't steal anyone's boyfriend, he doesn't do that anymore, he wants to be better than that, he just. One kiss. One kiss, and then he can – move on. One kiss goodbye, and then he'd be happy. That's how little it would take, and then Eliot could – go. He could go wherever he goes next.)

Eliot breaks first, he has to look away, he can't. He _can't_ see Quentin face like that and not – say anything, and just be _good_ and _gracious_ and Quentin's _friend_. He can be all those things, but not--

Okay, it turns out it was better, when Quentin wasn't quite looking at him anymore. Easier.

“So,” Eliot says awkwardly, choosing a point on the doorframe of his bathroom to focus his eyes on. “Yeah, that's. All a little weird. Wish I could shed any light on the situation.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says woodenly. “Yeah, too bad.”

And that should be the end of it, he should really let Quentin politely excuse himself and preserve what's left of their dignity, or at least their deniability. A person with good manners would do exactly that, and even at his worst, his most craven and morally compromised and deceitful, Eliot has always taken refuge in the fact that he has _good manners_.

For as much good as that's done him in his life.

“You should let me read the letter,” he says. He doesn't even _request_ it. Statements only.

“I'm not going to do that,” Quentin says, but he doesn't sound offended or anything. Just a statement.

“I wrote it,” Eliot says. “You think it's going to say anything I don't know?”

Quentin narrows his eyes in irritation, and Eliot really wishes it didn't just make him even fucking cuter. “Then you don't need to read it, do you?” he snips. “It's private, Eliot.”

“It's _ours_ , Quentin,” Eliot shoots back.

(There is no _ours_. Not now. Not in this life.)

“Okay, uh – fuck you?” Quentin says. There's no sting in it, no thrust behind it. Quentin's voice quivers on the words, and it just makes Eliot want to – fold him up and shelter him – to make Quentin's comfort, if not his enjoyment, Eliot's highest priority. “It's not ours, it's _mine_ , you gave it to _me_ – and _you_ didn't even give it to me, _you_ didn't, didn't tell me any of this. Whoever wrote this letter, it's _definitely not you_.”

Yeah, that. Does sting a little.

“You're right,” Eliot says. “Whatever I said, it's. Something I shouldn't have waited until you were dead to say, but that's. That's what I did. That's who I am, or – who I was. I hope I'm not...the same person I was, but. I couldn't expect you to just wait around until I got my crap together.”

“I didn't,” Quentin says.

“I know.”

(In his wildest dreams, the idea of a kiss was – more of an apology than anything else. More of a coda than an overture. Eliot wasn't expecting.... He wasn't.)

(It would just be nice to go back to – civilized conversation. That's all.)

“You really hurt me, you know?” Quentin says. Eliot bites the inside of his lip to keep from interrupting whatever Quentin has to get out, and he nods. “Like, I'm not some master of relationship wisdom, but you know what, El? _Neither are you._ It was condescending, and you made me-- I was good enough on Fillory to be your partner and then you turned around and made me feel so fucking _small_ , so like, who couldn't figure out what he really wanted? It wasn't me, Eliot.”

“I know.” Eliot deserves this, deserves at least this. He wants Quentin to have every opportunity to make the scene that he was too much of a gentleman to make at the time, too _respectful_ of Eliot's stupid fucking choices. “You're right. I was the one who was confused, not you. I just needed time, but I don't like – admitting that I don't know what I'm doing, so instead of asking for more time, I just, I shut it down. I ran away.”

“And then you send me this _letter_ ,” Quentin says, his voice cracking in half right down the middle. “This goddamn letter, where you tell me....” It's visible, actually physically visible, the way Quentin catches his breath, straightens his spine. Pulls himself together. “I honestly just think it would be embarrassing to you,” he says, quiet but firm. “You were really upset when you wrote it, and. I know you don't like to be, to be – emotional like that. And now you don't have to be. I'm fine. So let's just let it go, okay? I'm glad you're alive, too, so. We're even.”

(In his wildest dreams, Eliot is a gracious host. Eliot throws elegant parties and he's beloved by all, he's sophisticated and he's urbane, he's unfailingly polished, well-accessorized and well-mannered, and when the party is over, he's what everyone remembers most about it. In Eliot's wildest dreams, he's never so gauche as to spill his emotions all over someone – just one kiss, and they never forget him as long as they live. That's the dream. High King Eliot the Impeccable. Eliot Waugh the Invulnerable.)

Eliot doesn't wonder until later that night why Quentin had the letter right there in the pocket of his hoodie, weeks after it did its job.

He gets a little – emotional over the implications, but he's alone, so. That's okay.

The next day while Margo is buffing his fingernails for him, she says almost offhandedly, “I've been thinking about conquering Fillory. You up for it?”

“Not on my very best day,” he says. She pouts at him, and he has to laugh, because he guesses she really thought he was – what? Saying no? That he wanted to stay _on Earth_? Preposterous. “Conquering isn't really my line of work, Bambi, you know that. I get sweaty. What if I just provide a distraction while you prepare to strike? I've been absolutely pining to seduce a King for ages now.”

“Oh, you wish,” she scoffs, and then leans over him for a soft little kiss, which melts into a grin against Eliot's mouth. “Let's go fuck something up and steal a couple of crowns,” she whispers.

Eliot grins back, tasting her thick lipstick. Margo always knows just how to save his life.


End file.
